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Workplace stress may lead to health problems

Published: February 8, 2017

Male workers who have stressful jobs could experience health problems in the long-term, according to new research.

Canadian researchers concluded that stress in the workplace could increase the risk of certain types of cancer, although any direct link is yet to be confirmed by other sources.

Published in Preventative Medicine, scientists examined the rates of cancer among men in Montreal who had stressful jobs and found links to five different cancers.

The authors concluded: “One of the biggest flaws in previous cancer studies is that none of them assessed work-related stress over a full working lifetime, making it impossible to determine how the duration of exposure to work-related stress affects cancer development.

“Our study shows the importance of measuring stress at different points in an individual’s working life.”

Emma Shields, health information officer at Cancer Research UK, explained in a statement: “Many previous studies have shown that there’s no link between stress and the risk of cancer developing. Stressful situations might affect how much alcohol we drink, how much we eat, and whether we smoke – all things that strongly affect our cancer risk, but there’s no good evidence that stress itself directly causes cancer.

“There are lots of things we can do to reduce our cancer risk. Not smoking, cutting down on alcohol, and keeping a healthy weight can all add up to make a big difference.”